service outside the Safeway, complete with songs, poetry
readings, testimonials, and a recitation of the mourner’s
kaddish. When the store ultimately closed, it represented
not merely the end of an era, but also the loss of our
ecosystem’s primary food source.

JASON PUTSCHÉ PHOTOGRAPHY

FROM
WHERE
I STAND
Russel Shaw, Head of School

A look inside GDS on any given day reveals a multiplicity
of identities. GDS is a community. A hub of activism. A
workplace. A training ground. A learning institution. And
an ecosystem.
An ecosystem is “a large community of living organisms in a
particular area...linked together through nutrient cycles and
energy flows.” Four years ago, our High School ecosystem
experienced a disruption in its nutrient cycle when the
Tenleytown Safeway closed.
The Tenleytown Safeway had played an important role in
the High School ecosystem since we opened our doors on
Davenport Street in 1996. To put it into context, there has
been a Safeway within walking distance of the High School
since it started back in 1969, despite being in four different
locations. While perhaps apocryphal, I was told more than
once that GDS students, parents, and faculty represented a
third of the Tenleytown store’s total revenue. The Safeway
was tremendously convenient, whether for picking up
cookies for a club meeting, a quick deli sandwich for lunch,
or a pack of paper towels on the way home. The Safeway
was the “cafeteria” for a school that didn’t have one.
In 2014, when ownership of Corporate Safeway changed
hands, the company’s new owners decided to close
some of its underperforming stores, including the one
on Davenport Street. This decision proved a great
boon to GDS, as we were able to purchase the site and
initiate our process of school unification. It also, however,
represented a loss for the GDS community, and in 2015,
our High School students held a touching memorial
2

What happens in an ecosystem when a food source
disappears? Science tells us that the extinction of one
species can endanger other life in the same ecosystem
because of the interdependency of life forms in a food web.
The true test of any life form in this circumstance is whether
it is adaptable enough to evolve its habits, identifying
a new food source and re-establishing the health of the
ecosystem. Often this takes a period of adjustment, and so
it was at GDS.
I am pleased to report that since the Safeway closed its
doors in 2016, the ecosystem has righted itself. Quietly,
without much fanfare, a student-run school store appeared
in the High School Internet Cafe. At first called “Tabata”
(named, in true GDS fashion, after a type of high-intensity
interval training developed by Japanese scientist Dr. Izumi
Tabata and popularized at GDS by Physical Education
department chair Taylor Brown), the store, opening in the
2017-18 school year, was minimalist at first, featuring a
handful of different snack foods. While it had a few patrons,
it struggled to find its niche in an ecosystem where it
was competing with vending machines, outside vendors,
an abundance of Tenleytown restaurants and, most
importantly, lunch packed at home.
The proprietors of Tabata (led by founder Jonah DocterLoeb '20) determined that the store needed to evolve to
survive. Selection was expanded dramatically, with food
and drink orders driven by student requests and filled by
weekly deliveries from Costco. A volunteer team of 20 store
clerks was developed, each of whom receives discounts on
their own purchases in exchange for hours overseeing the
store. The name “Tabata” was ultimately deemed too
esoteric, and the store was rebranded first as
Story McStoreface (after the
British autonomous